Editing Osci (section)

==Classical sources==

According to [[Aristotle]], the Opici lived in "the part of Italy towards [[Tyrrhenia]]" and were also called [[Ausones]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Aristotle |author-link=Aristotle |title=Politics |url=https://archive.org/details/politicsrackh00arisuoft |chapter=vii.10|year=1932 }}</ref> [[Antiochus of Syracuse]] agreed that the Opici were Ausones and placed them in [[Campania]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Strabo |author-link=Strabo |title=Geography |url=https://archive.org/details/strabogeographyb00stra |chapter=5.4.3|year=1917 }}</ref> [[Strabo]], however, the chief source for the fragments of Antiochus, himself distinguished between the Osci and the Ausones, remarking that the Osci had disappeared, but the Romans still used their dialect as a literary language, and that the "high sea" near Sicily was still named Ausonian even though the Ausonians never lived near it.<ref>{{cite book |author=Strabo |author-link=Strabo |title=Geography |url=https://archive.org/details/strabogeographyb00stra |chapter=5.4.6|year=1917 }}</ref> [[Aurunci]] is the Roman name for Ausones by a commonplace change of an s to an r in Latin: *Ausuni> *Auruni> *Aurunici> Aurunci.<ref>{{harvnb|Smith|1854|pp=343, 345}}</ref> They were perhaps the same people in the early [[Roman Republic]]. In the 4th century BC, the names came to be applied to distinct tribes.